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The North forbearing— The South aggressive. 



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HON. Ji B. ALLEY, OF MASS., 




DELlVKRKIi IN Till; 



UOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY '1^, 1801. 






The Iluuae having under couaidiMation the report from the selvct committee of Oilrty-tliree — 

Mr. ALLEY said : 

Mr. Speaker: It is said we are in.tlie oiidst of a revolution. We are told that 
this niightj political fabric of ours, erected and bequeathed tu ua hy our fatheru, 
consecrated by their juayers «nd cemented by their blood, is tu be overthrown. 1 
have ever believed that this could never occur; fur I have had too much faith in 
the wisdom of man to believe that a Union of such inestimable value to all the ma- 
terial, social, and political interests of that section which is the only one that has 
ever seriously threatened its destruction, could be dissolved by the action of those 
whose interests, above all others', that Union alone could defend and prcoerve. 
History, either ancient or modern, furnishes no parallel to such political suicide. 

But we must deal with facts as they are. Unaccountably strange as it may ap 
pear, it is no less true then strange, that several sovereign States of this Union 
have dissolved, so far as they could, all allegiance to this Government, and declared 
themselves independent. Sir, a responsibility rests upon us in this emergency 
weightier than any ever before placed upon the Representatives of the people since 
the foundation of the Government. 

In order that we may discharge our duty to our constituents, to the country, and 
to mankind, it may be well to inquire what are the causes of this commotion, what 
will be the effect of disruption, and where is the remedy to be found which is to 
allay its aggravation, if not to cure this overshadowing evil? In order to do this, 
we should be calm and dispassionate, and investigate, not as heated parti^ans, but 
in the spirit of patriotism and statesmanship. For one, 1 would subordinate every 
consideration of party triumph to the salvation of this Government, and the estab- 
lishment of fraternal relations between the different sections of this great Confed- 
eracy. Hut I would never sacrifice and trample upon the eternal principles of right 
to save this Gsovernment or any other. 

As to the causes of the troubles that are upon us, the history of the world shows 
that no slight causes can ever produce revolution in national Goverumeuta, with a 
reasonably intelligent people. The seeds of the first French revolution were planted, 
and almost in full fruition, long before Louis XVI was born. That revolution cul- 
minated in the establishment of a despotism ; which was, however, preferable to 
the rule of that greatest of French Kings, Louis XIV, the usurpations, aggressions, 
and crimes of whose reign paled into utter insignificance the errors and misdeeds 
of him whom France beheaded. So it was with the American Revolution, which 



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resulted in the establishment of our independence. The people bore and forbore, 
for a long series of years, the aggressions of the mother country, rather than resort 
to the arbitrament of the sword. And it may not be unprofitable to remember, 
that previous to the battle nf Lexington, on the 19th of April, 1775, there was a 
strong reaction in the public mind, which rendered it extremely doubtful whether 
the measures inaugurated by the Continental Congress of 1774 would be sustained 
by the people. But that conflict of armn on the plains of Lexington nettled the 
question. So, I apprehend, it may be with us. The first drop of blood that is shed 
will be the signal, I fear, for a sanguinary conflict, that must end in a war of de- 
vastation, if not extermination, of one section of this country, which the soul 
sickens to contemplate. 

The South tells us that the North has been aggressive upon their rights and 
interests, and den}' to them eciual privileges under the Constitution. Let us ex- 
amine this charge ; and God forbid that I should say or do anything to aggravate 
existing evils at the present moment. Nobody denies that the fathers of the Re- 
public were opposed to the extension of slavery, and believed, it to be a moral, 
social, and political evil, to be tolerated upon no other ground than that of uncon- 
trollable necessity. One of their first acts was to limit and circumscribe slavery by 
prohibiting its introduction into all the Territory helonging ^o the United States. 
Their avowed and determined policy was to make "freedom national, and slavery 
sectional." This purpose of our republican fathers met with little or no opposition 
uortli or south. The United States, ushered into being by the heroes and patriots 
of the Revolution, started upon a career of progress and glory, with a success un- 
paralleled in the history of the world, with the sentiment of opposition to the 
extension of slavery inscribed upon its banner in words of living light. 

When we look at the prosperity of the teeming millions who now inhabit that vast 
western tern'toi-y from which slavery was excluded by the wisdom, the sagacity, 
and humuuity of our revolutionary fathers, should we not be degenerate sons of 
most noble sires, if we could look with indifi'erence upon the extension of the blight 
and carse of slavery? Virginia's noblest son, aud the world's greatest man, stood 
where the Eepublican party stand to-day upon this question of slavery. So with 
all her eminent statesmen up to a very recent period. Nearly all the gifted states 
men of the South have left upon record their testimony against the extension of 
slavery. Anfi are we to be accused of a want of fidelity to our constitutional obli- 
gations lor merely re-echoing these sentiments of the most honored sons of the 
South? J 8 this Government to be overthrown because we cherish the sentiments 
of Washington, Henry, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Pinckney, and Clay? all of 
them men whom the South delighted to honor? Who ever heard of such madness 
and folly? 

Casting aside all considerations of the question of slavery in its moral aspect, is 
there anything to commend it to our favorable regard as a question of political 
«5Conomy 1 Contrast the slave States with the free States, not invidiously, but can 
didly, fairly, and honestly. Take them separately or collectively, and how will 
■ the slave States compare with the free States? AVhether you take those that are 
as old as the Constitution, or those which have been admitted since, all bear evi- 
dence of the fact that slavery is but an incubus upon the growth and prosperity of 
e^ery State that tolerates it within its borders ; a curse that paralyzes its energies, 
and hinders its development. How is it with the free States ? The least prosper- 
ous of the free States, whether you take the old or the new, is more flourishing than 
the best of the slave States; whether you regard their material interests or their 
general intelligence. 

Now, is there a candid man outside of this controversy that will not say that 
these statements are exactly true ? That the policy of the fathers of the Republic 
was to favor freedom and prevent the extension of slavery; that the growth and 
prosperity of the free States, aud the languishiug condition of many of the slavt- 
States, prove conolusively that freedom favors growth and prosperity; while slavery, 
oti the other hand, prevents expansion and development? If this be so, and such 
Wfts the practice of our fathers, whose memory we cherish with enthusiastic rever 
enco, why blame us fr)r practicing upon their precepts and profiting by their example ? 

But it is said by southern men now, that Washington, Henry, Jefferson, Madison, 
atid others of the past were mistaken. Mistaken! Does the growth, prosperity, 
and power of the mighty West — which was a howling wilderness, almost untrod by 



the 8tep of civilized man. when they ordained that slavery should never exist upon 

that virgin aoil — prove that tliej' were m'Htiiken ? Ih thoro anything in the present 

ooudition of tbsir own beloved Virginia, whom one of her own eloquent sons whom 

she deliglity to honor, now representing t^iis country at the <'ourt of France, said 

of her but _a few yearr< ngo. n cnniraHtiiig her c>ndition with that of Ohio, "she 

wiia barren, desolate, an 1 seared, as it were, by the avenging hand of Heaven." 

•'And to what," he exclaimed, "is all thin ascribable tc; Alone to the withering, 

blasting effects »( slavery." Is there anything, 1 say, in this, t» prove they were 

mistaken? Not by miy mean.s. Kxp'rience hus shown their almost superhuman 

wisdom in that urdinani-e of 17H7. Xol Sooner than coinienia the great and goo'l 

men of the early da\ s of the Uepublic. should we not rather say, with a great south- 

^^ ern stme-man, imw no more, "nerveless be the arm. and pilsied forever be th» 

V^ tongue, that should talk and vote in favor of the extension of human slavery!" 

I Jj Notwithstanding wo show the jjosition of tiio Uepnl<licau party, ujion the ques 

4 tion of slavery, is the same as that occupied liy all the great statesmen of the 

yfZ past, both North and South, and with the indisputal)lc facts staring us in the face. 

tliat the material interests of this great tounfry can only be fully developed by a 

system of free labor — we are called upon i<o stide our convictions of right, to close 

A) our Qprs to the calls of humanity, to cease writing and speaking against slavery, 

^ and to give it free license for its extension throughout (iod's heritage. I havr 

^ - leard men of the South say that we must do all iliis and more: we uiusl. change 

the hearts of our people, and make ilieni boliuve. with the South, that slavery is 

right, and not, as we think now, :i oiirse and a crime, but a blessing to the master 

anil a mercy to the slave. This, of course, we can never do. 

The freemen of the North believe slavery to be wrong — a sin ag.iinst Ood and a 
rritnc against man — and they cannot, and they will not, be responsible for its fur- 
ther extension. So far as I am concerned, by no word or d'-ed of mine shall sla- 
very obtain any new constitutional guaranrios. The people of the North believe 
they have no power, and they have no desire, to m»ddle with the institution of 
slavery in the States. Tliey do ui>t feel that they are at all responsible for it 
there: and therefore it is no buriUm upon their conscience. But not so with the 
Territories. There they regard themselves as responsil>lc for it : and no power 
on earth could compel inv constituents to consent to i«s protection there. 

The people of the South greatly mistake the soniiment of the North. Thcj 
think this opposition to slaverj* is groumled upon prejudice and ill-will to the 
South ; that their hatred of the South and its iustituiions is ineffaceable and im- 
placable : that this slavery question is a mere ijuostion of property. Would to 
Ood that the sonthern mind could be disabused of this false impression ! I believe 
there is no sacritico thut could be named, involving mere pecuniary consi<leratiouH. 
tiiat the North would not cheerfully make t^ restore peace and harmony to our 
distracted country. But to be called upon to sacrifice their long-cherisheil con- 
victions of right and duty, is more than they can consent to, be the consequences 
what they may. To accuse us of hating the South, because we cannot in con- 
science be responsible for any further guaranties for slavery, is no nioro reason- 
able than it wouM be for (Quakers to accuse Baptists of hating them because they 
could not in conscience bccoine Baptists, or for Bapli.sts to accuse (Quakers of 
h.iting them because they would not. ab.iudon their conscientious convictions and 
believe as they do. No, indeed : if it was a ((uestiou of mere property, it could 
be speedily settled, be the amount never so large. My constituents are willing to 
live up to and fultill all their constitutional obligations, anil will be quite content 
to live on in the future as in the past, leaving slavery where it. belongs, unmo- 
lested in the States. If the Union can be preserved upon this basis. God be 
praised : if not. then they are ready to take the consequences. 

I think I have shown that the action of the North furnishes no reasonable ground 
of complaint How has it been with the action of the South? Let us sec how 
far she has been just to the North. For half a century or more, the South has 
virtually had possession of the national Government : an<l during that whole 
period, a very large majority of the revenues for the support of the Government 
have been paid by the people of the North ; and during a greater portion of that 
time, more than three-quarters of the whole revenue has been taken from the 
pockets of the people of the North. Any man who has bestowed much thought 
upon this matter, and who will take the trouble to investigate it thoroughly, will 



be convinced of the truth of these declarations. Now, so far as offices and appro- 
priations are concerned, the South has always had the lion's share. Her sons 
have monopolized, to a very great extent, all the best offices of the Government. 
Ii8 honors and emoluments have been lavished upon the men of the South, 
with an unsparing hand. Of all this the North have never seriously com- 
plained; and it results from two causes : the jealousy of the South of northern 
influence generally, and the fact that almost the only avenue to distinction in the 
South is in connection with the Government. 

There ire few men of distinction in the South, in science, in literature, or in 
mercantile pursuits ; because the condition an t institutions of the South are not 
conducive to the growth and development of such minds. Therefore it is that 
almost every southern mind, in whose bosom glows the fires of ambition, turns his 
attention to the gUttering prizes and high honors of the G' vernment. Not so with 
the North. While she has furnished to the Government many eminent statesmen, 
of great ability, vast attainments, and liberal culture, I think it but fair to say, 
that, as a general proposition, her highest type of mind is not to be found in ad- 
ministering the Government. Therefore it is, that in all political contests, not- 
withstanding the acknowledged superior power of the North, and her greater num- 
bers, the South has almost always been victorious. , 

Had the South used her power prudently and acted wisely, she would have con- 
trolled the destinies of this Government for generations yet to come. Had she 
even administered the Government as she always had done, with but little regard 
to the development of the material interests of the North, and with an eye single 
to the interests of the South only, but refrained from attempting to coerce the 
North into a surrender of their deep- rooted conscientious convictions of right and 
duty, Abraham Lincoln would not have been to-day President elect of these United 
States. But, flushed with victories so constant ai;d thorough, and maddened by 
every expression of opposition to their pcculier institution, they cummenced a work 
of proscription and aggression upon the rights of the people of the North, which 
has finally forced them to rise in their might and drive them from power. They 
commenced their aggressions upon the North in some of the southern States by the 
enactment of unconstitutional laws, imprisoning colored seamen, and refusing to 
allow those laws to be tested before the proper tribunals. They trampled upon 
the sacred right of petition ; they rifled and burnt our mails, if they suspected they 
contained anything in condemnation of slavery. They proscribed every northern 
man from office who would not smother and deny his honest convictions upon sla- 
very, and barter his manhood for place. They annexed foreign territory avowedly 
to extend and strengthen their peculiar institution, and made war in defence and 
support of that policy. They refused admission into the Union of States with free 
constitutions, unless they could have, as an equivalent, new guarantees for slavery. 
They passed a fugitive slave bill, some of the provisions of which were so merci- 
less, and unnecessary as they were inhuman, that they would have disgraced the 
worst despotism of Europe. They repealed that "Missouri compromise act," which 
they had themselves forced upon the North, against their wishes and their votes ; 
and after having attained all their share of the benefit, they struck it down, against 
the indignant and almost unanimous protest of the whole North, for the purpose of 
forcing slavery upon an unwilling people. They undertook to prevent, by violent 
means, the settlement of Kansas by free-State men. They invaded that Territory, 
and plundered and murdered its citizens by armed force, with arms belonging to, 
and taken from, the National Government. They imposed upon its people arbi- 
trary, wicked, and bogus legislation bjf a fraudulent Legislature. They were left 
to the tender mercies of border ruffians, unprotected by the Federal Government. 
These peaceful inhabitants were subjected to fire, pillnge, and murder, by these 
invaders, at the instigation of southern counsels. Not satisfied with all this, they 
tried to force upon them, against their consent, a constitution permitting and pro- 
tecting slavery; and for "spurning the bribe," they have been kept out of the 
Union, and made to sufi^er all manner of indignities. Every new triumph of the 
South and every concession by the North has only whetted their appetite for still 
more, and encouraged them in making greater claims and more unreasonable de- 
mands, until to-day they are threatening the overthrow of the Government if we do 
not give them additional guarantees for protection to their slave property in terri- 
tory which we do not now own. If this has been the action of the South, and such 



Rre her montroue and uureaaonable demands upon the North, is it not well to inquire 
th« value of this connection with the South, and the conseriuencs to us and to her 
of severing the tie which n..w hinds us together ? In a speech which I made in this 
House on the ;;Oth day of April last. I used the following language: 

"But we'of the North are not only tlireaten*.! with a (liwwlutlon of the UdIod, in the erent ..f • 
coutingency, which I think is xuro t.. happen, nnniely, the olectL.n uf ii It.-publican PreeiJent, hut we 
we told that non-infcrronrno i.stoboc»tal>ll»hf<l IniMiPdliiti-lv with the North, and the South will 
pnrchase no moro of l^pr products. ThiH is. indwd, ularniinK; hut Irt uh inquire how this ix to be 
effected. Everything that the .South ha« to soil, her p.yertv conip.ia hi-r to sell for earth onlv ; while 
everythuiK we dlHpo^e of to the South, we give her a liberal cn.lit upon. The South t^-day cannot. 
fnmyoi)inion. pay Its debts: and It has not property enough, in my JudKment—n..t what we of the 
North call property— to pay Beventy-flve centu on the dollar of what it owes. .And shall they talk of 
Don-intercourHe? Why, if yon except the la«t few yeare, in which the South haa been remarkably 
prosperous, owing to the high price of her products— a state of things which it i» imposmble should last : 
and the North has lost more money at the South a great ileal than she has erermadeby the trade of 
the South: and there Is scarcely a norlh.rn merchant who has not been oblige<l to depend upon his 
profits from custom receiTcd from the mi. Idle and western States to meet his losses suffere<I in trade 
at the South. I remember well that in the great commercial revulsion that swept over this country 
like a tornado in IS.-!?, every ni.rthern merchant thiif I knew in all the northern cities that deaU 
exclusively with the South failed and was mined. The simmc thing again <K-curred in 1842— the year 
in which the United States bankrupt law was passed, which wiped out untold millions of southern 
indebtedness; more, in fact, than the profits of the whole trade of tho Sontli would then amount to 
for half a score of years. The only houses that survived those two storms were those which had kept 
clear of trading with the .«outh." 

Mr. Speaker, what I then said 1 fully believed, and thought I knew. If has 
now become history, which no one thinks of denying. I have traded much with 
the South, and my own experience is corroborative of these views. 1 have be- 
stowed much thought and investigation upon the subjccf, and I am willing to slake 
my reputation as a merchnnt upon the record of the declaration that, commer- 
cially and financially, if you fake into view only the business interests of the 
two sections, the North would be better off if this Fnion should be dissolved to- 
morrow. Kven if this Union is to be perpetuated, in my opinion the South never 
will, and never can, pay one half of its indebtedness to the North without con- 
tracting new debts to help meet its old obligations. The whole property of all 
the cotton States, if you except slaves, will not equal, by many millions, in my 
judgment, that of the State of Massachusetts. The great staple of the South, 
about which she boasts so much, and with which she is to move the world, does 
not amount to one-half as much as the annual products of Alassachusetts. And I 
will venture the pre<liftion. that within eight years American cotton will not be 
of one-half the relative importance to manufactures that it is to-day, from causes 
which I have not lime now to enumerate; and the introduction of flax will di- 
minish the use of it very materially. 

I have spoken of the property of the South, if you except slaves. But why 
except slaves ? Because thi-y are not property, only in a conventional sense. 
They are not good for anything to pay debts with beyond the community where 
slavery is legalized: and tlii:'y add rothing to the aggregate wealth of a country 
or a community. 'Ihey n\v no more property, so far as the wealth of the com- 
munity is concerned, than our population at the North is property. All labor 
adds to the productive wealth of a country : and .the only difference between slave 
labor and free labor, in this connection, is, that our laborer owns his own labor, 
and the slaves labor is owned by another: and being forced labor, is less pro- 
ductive than the other, consequently less valuable as a source of wealth than the 
free labor. There is no better illustration, perhaps, that can be given than in 
peon slavery. Peons are held to service, and cannot control their own labor, 
because it is owned by another; and yet they are not property ; but they are quite 
as much property, so far as the State is concerned, as slaves. If. therefore, you 
deduct the estimated value of the slaves from the aggregate property of the Sotith, 
the balance presents but a meagre show ; not much more than enough, certainly, 
to pay its indebtedness to others. 

But I think I hear the question asked, how will the trade of the North be im- 
proved by a separation from the South ? Because the want of thrift at the South 
is such, and the system of long and loose credits prevail to such an extent there, 
that a large portion of the .southern trade is not worth having, the losses upon it 
being greater to the merchant than the profits. The credits are almost all upon 
one side ; consequently the losses are also. There is no reciprocity in the credit 



system between the North and South. There is scarcely anything of northern 
manufacture that the South will not want as much after disunion as it does now. 
There is hardly any product or manufacturo of the Noiuh that the South now pur- 
chases of her that she cannot furnish against the iTiarkets of the world ; therefore 
free trade, so far as the South is concerned, could make but little difference to the 
commercial or manufacturing interests of the North. 

If we should have a peaceable division — which T conceive next to impossible ; 
but if it were possible, the trade of the South would be more valuable to the North 
than it is now. Credit would be inncli more restricted than now, and our losses 
would be comparatively light. Our Government would also be relieved from an 
enormous expenditure, which we have been, are now. and probably will be, ob- 
liged to incur for the benefit of the SoiUh, if we continue together, most of which 
is drawn from the pockets of the nortliern people. The persons and property of 
our citizens would be much better protected then than now. A united North, 
under one Government, w^ould then, as now. be masters of this continent ; and 
all other Powers here would have to bow in humble .submission to our will. We 
should be three times as great in numbers, very much larger in inhabited terri- 
tory, and in wealth, power, and material resources, incalculably superior to the 
United States when she waged a successful war against Great Britain, no longer 
ago than 1812 ; a nation of freemen, with resources so vast, with an inielligenc.p 
so great, with a mission so important, what a spectacl.e we sho.uUl prestiit to the 
civilized world 1 

When I reflect upon it, I see so clearly such a bright future before me that I 
am more than half reconciled to the separation of these States, if, in the provi- 
dence of God, it is destined to take place. In that event Canada would rush to 
our embrace, and give U8 a trade which would be of great and increasing value. 
Our trade and commerce with Central America and Mexico would be no longer 
hampered and obstructed by the jealousies of the South. Before the close of Mr. 
Lincoln's administration, we should find our trade extended, and our commercial 
and financial prosperity (permeating every industrial interest of, the country) ex- 
ceeding that of any other period in our history. 

But supposing the South should make war upon us : what will be our situation 
as compared with hers ? This, I allow, would be a serious matter for us, but 
complete destruction to them; and may, Heaven, in its infinite mercy, save us 
from such an impending calamity ! But if it must come, we have the power and 
the means, such as the South could not cope with for a moment. In such a con- 
test, she would have but little money, and no credit ; fewer in numbers, with a 
servile population at home requiring a large force to keep in subjection. With 
us, either one of several of our old States could raise, equip, and maintain a con- 
siderable army upon its own resources ; and all combined, could defy the world 
in arms. This is no exaggerated picture, as every thoughtful man knows. Is it 
for us, then, to humiliate ourselves, sacrifice our principles, and be bound hand 
and foot by this arrogant slave power, to save these soutliern States from I'ushing 
upon their own destruction ? Never ! Never I 

But they are our brethern; and we would not forget, if we could, that they are 
descendants of the same heroic Ancestry, and thus tar have shared with us a com- 
mon destiny. And let us remember, "that they know what they do." They have 
been deceived and imposed upon, as to our purposes and views, by our opponents at 
the North, and by a venal press, as ro people ever were befoic : nnd their own ora- 
tors at home, for selfish and unworthy emls, hnve purposely deceived them, by mis- 
representing and abusing us. They have no realizipg sense of their own weakness, 
or of the immense resources and mighty power of the North. Therefore we should 
have charity for them. They are as brave a people, I believe, as ever lived. They 
are not averse to fighting, and much le^;s forbearing than the people of the North. 
The northern people are equally brave, with cooler heads and better judgment, and 
so much greater in numbers, with almost infinite resources, that such an unequal 
contest could only excite feelings of pity for them with every reflecting mind^ We 
can afford to be magnanimous and forbearing ; and let us do nothing which will put 
us in the wrong, in any particular, in the eyes of the civilized world. 

If we do not yield, we arc told by the advocat'-s of compromise, we are like the 
Government and tories of Great Britain in the days of the Revolution. They were 
told by the Burkes and the Pitts that the colonists were right in resisting, and the 



King would lose tBe' colonies if the GoTernment did not recede. So we were told 
now that this Government shall be overthrown, if we do not cense to hate slavery and 
love freedom. It feems to me this parallel should be reversed. The coloniita were 
struggling aj^&inst usurpation and aggressions on the part of those in power. They 
wonld not yield, and they overthrew their power. Ju.it so with us. We have 
resisted the usurpations and aggressions of the slave power, and they would not 
listen to our appeals ; and we have risen in our strength, and overthrown them. 

I heard the distinguisheil Senator from Misnissippi t<ay, the other day, that it 
would soon be too late, if it was not already, to tender the olive branch of peace ; 
that obstinacy and refusal to make concessions in season cost one king of England 
his head, and drove another, his successor, into exile. And he compared us to King 
James, who refused to listen to all complaints until he saw his kingly sceptre pas- 
sing from him, when he would gladly have made all the concessions demanded of 
him ; but it was too late, and he was driven into exile. Here, again, is the mistake 
of misapplication. The parallel ""hould be reversed James came into power under 
most favorable auspices, with a Parliament devoted to his interests, which, if he 
had been moderate and wise, he could have kept to the close of his reign. The 
Church was strong in its attachment to him, and the judges were completely sub- 
servient to his will. But he WHS a Roman Catholic. The Church, however, had 
no disposition to meddle with his religion and encroach upon his prerogative. 

But James was a propagandist, and was determined to make others think as ho 
did. ile trampled upon the laws ; he violated the Constitution ; he set at defiance 
the will of the people; he corrupted the courts; he bribed the Parliament ; and had 
no respect for the rights of conscience. He could not believe that Protestants 
could have conscientious convictions; there were, in his estimation, but foolish 
whims. His propagaudism, and his arbitrary exercise of power, cost him his throne. 
Is it not precisely so with those who have had possession of our national Govern- 
ment '.' In their progagandisni of slavery, they have trampled upon the laws, vio- 
lated the Constitution, bribed Congress, corrupted courts, and set at defiance the 
will of the people, who have risen iu their might and driven them into exile — an 
exile, I trust, as returnless as was that of their old prototype James II ; and if this 
political revolution of ours should be as bloodless, and as beneficent in its results 
as that of 1G88, then, indeed, may the pei^ple well rejoice. 

This Government, in my judgment, will never be overthrown. We may have 
seces.sion, temporary, perhaps permanent ; and it may be wise policy to let some of 
(he refractory States go, peaceably if they must : but they will never repent it but 
once, and that will be always. If they can afford to go, we can certainly afford to 
lose them. But deeply as 1 !<hould deplore it. I should ff^el that much worse politi- 
cal evils could befall us ; and, for one, I should try to be content. 

I do not believe, with some of those who are imploring us to submit to any demand 
to save the Union that may be made upon us, that freedom will die with the destruc- 
tion of this Republic, and who point to the experience of Europe and the Republics 
of South Amerit a in confirmation of their prophecy. Freedom and free institutions 
rest upon the intelligence of the people, and free constitutions can never exist upon 
any other basis. Our American Constitution and our free institutions are but the 
evi lence of the intelligence of the .Vmericnn people, not the cause, but the effect of 
that intelligence; and if this ("onstitution and Government is overthrown, it will be 
by one section of the Confederacy, because its people were not sufficiently intelli- 
gent to appreciate its blessings or comprehend its value; and for them a military 
despotism may be demanded by the necessities of their condition. But the freemen 
of the North could no more be subjected to despotic rule than could the lightning 
of heaven be curbed. Such a rule would be as pack-thveads upon the arms of an 
unshorn Samson. 

Before 1 close, I wish to Say a word in reply to the aspersions so frequently cast 
upon the fair fame of Massachusetts and her distinguished chief magistrate. I will 
say now, what I have said before in this place, tiiat Massachusetts "needs no eulogy 
from any of her sons." " Her works praise her;'' and envy or malice may occasion 
her disparagement ; but she stands forth to-day, in the estimation of all enlightened 
men throughout the world, as the model State of this Union. Her achievements in 
science, in literature, in arts, in industrial pursuits, and in works of benevolence, 
and her intellectual and moral standard, are altogether unsurpassed by any section 
of equal territorial extent upon this oontineat. Equally pre-eminent if her hiatorio 



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greatness . and so well settled is this by the general judgment of all mankind, that 
no one whose opinion is worth quoting dares to deny her historic supremacy. Her 
devotion to the interests of freedom is but the record of her history. She ever has 
been, and ever will be, true to her plighted faith. She will observe every consti- 
tutional obligation. As she made greater sacrifices of the treasures of her coflFera 
and the blood of her sons than any other State, to secure constitutional liberty, eo 
she will always stand by the flag of the Union, as the symbol of its power and the 
type of its continuity. 

Her excellent Governor has been most basely slandered, not only by the opposi- 
tion press, but within the walls of this Capitol by those who should have known 
better, as a defender of the invasion of Virginia by John Brown. The record of 
his testimony, given under the solemnities of an oath, not long after the occurrence, 
in this very Capitol, before the "Harper's Ferry investigating committee," stamps 
the declaration as false. He has often, declared in public and private that John 
Brown's invasion of Virginia was without justification or warrant. 

Mr. MAYNAllD. If the gentleman from Massachusetts will allow me, I desire 
to say a single word in explanation of his remark that the Governor of Massa- 
chusetts has been grossly slandered in respect to his favoring the John Brown 
raid. I suppose it is proper that the faet should be known, that the statement of 
the supposed sentiment of the Governor of Massachusetts originated in a reported 
speech, delivered in Tremont Temple, if I mistake not, about the 9th of Novem- 
ber, 1859, on taking the chair to preside over a meeting called for the purpose of 
sympathizing with the family of John Brown, perhaps, or with some persons con- 
nected with that unfortunate alfair. 

Mr. ALLEY. I will say to the gentleman from Tennessee that I desire not to 
be understood as imputing to any one in this House, or in the Senate, an inten- 
tional misrepresentation of the position of Governor Andrew. I stated that he 
has been basely slandered by the Opposition press at the North, and that the report 
which has been made of his remarks on the occasion to which the gentleman refers 
was a garbled report ; that he has since contradicted it ; and that his testimony 
given before the investigating committee of the Senate proves the declaration to 
have been false. I will state to the gentleman further, that I have heard Gover- 
nor Andrew, both in private and in public, say that the invasion of John Brown 
was without justification or excuse ; that he never had the slightest sympathy 
with his raid whatever, and that he never said in his life that he would justify or 
tolerate any such conduct. 

Massachusetts has had twenty-one Governors since the adoption of her first 
constitution, in 1780, all of them able and distinguished, most of them eminent, 
and some of them illustrious ; but in everything that constitutes true greatness of 
character and mind, not one among them all was the superior of John A. Andrew. 

Sir, we must stand upon the Constitution and a just and faithful execution of 
the laws, as our fathers framed and as they administered them. There is no one 
that does not deplore civil war ; and he is a madman and fool that would not 
exert every nerve and exhaust every honorable means to avert it. But " there is a 
point beyond which forbearance ceases to be a virtue ;" and when the dread alter- 
native comes, if come it must, every patriot will say, that the integrity of the 
Government must be maintained, and the flag of our country defended at any cost 
and every hazard. The descendants of those who fought at Lexington and Con- 
cord, Bunker Hill and Saratoga, will never see our star-spangled banner trailing 
in the dust. 

Mr. Speaker, whether this Government is to stand or fall in its present entirety, 
is known but to Him whose eye alone penetrates the future ; but whether it stand 
or fall, I have faith in the wisdom and patriotism of the American people ; and 
if we are only true to our convictions, we have a future most hopeful, a mission 
most important, and a destiny most glorious. 



MoGUJi A WiTHEBOW, Steam Presi Printars, WMhington, D. C. 



